


Kingdom By The Sea

by waitingtobelit



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/F, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Romance, Sad, Selkies, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingtobelit/pseuds/waitingtobelit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It fits, somehow, that tonight is the one night to unite Eponine with her love, a night of superstitious whispering and exaggerated ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kingdom By The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This…kind of got away from me. I just have an extreme fondness for Selkies. Also inspired by Heather Dale’s “The Maiden and The Selkie.” Title comes from the Edgar Allen Poe poem, “Annabel Lee.”
> 
> Potential warnings for mentions of violence and death, though nothing explicit.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Les Mis.

The moon glistens like glass as the tide shatters against the shore. Eponine appreciates the fragmented light as she rests her chin in one hand, knees pulled up beneath her raggedy skirt and the peasant blouse swallowing her upper body like the water just before her. It’s not much of an outfit, all earthy greens and browns, complete with a crooked, raggedy top hat, but it’s the best costume she could come up with last minute, and, knowing Cosette and her penchant for human holidays, she wants to demonstrate as much spirit as she can muster for tonight. An old basket waits with her at her side, as wretched and used as anything else Eponine owns.

Echoes of inebriated celebration and youthful euphoria alike ring out behind her. Young children exclaim over pastries and chocolate as adults exchange worn-out, sympathetic grins. Ghosts, demons, vampires, and, of course, witches, weave about the streets behind her as the moonlight continues to weave through the sea. The corners of Eponine’s mouth twitch as she picks at the worn hem of her skirt. So many people so unaware of the power tonight holds over all other days of the year. She inhales deeply, swallowing the salty air as though it were a finely aged wine; the evening breeze runs through her as she keeps her eyes on the onyx expanse of the sea.

It fits, somehow, that tonight is the one night to unite Eponine with her love, a night of superstitious whispering and exaggerated ghosts. A witch and her fair selkie, like some drunken, medieval ballad. Eponine snorts at the absurdity of the situation. Yet her heart still stumbles inside her chest as she warms herself with the heat of the purple fire in her hand, her gaze unwavering from the surface of the water.

Eponine has the ocean to herself tonight, thanks in part to the abundance of celebrations, but also due to her rather formidable skills with fire magic. Montparnasse and his group overestimated themselves when they decided to invade her privacy with their shitty music and even shittier beer just over an hour ago now. A smirk pulls at the sides of her mouth as she recalls the sudden panic sparked by the flick of her wrists and the incendiary miracles bursting from them. She takes particular delight in the memory of Babet’s eyebrows catching on fire, kicking into the sand at her feet and giggling into the grains she sends into the air.

She wonders if Cosette will scold her for such violence; the other woman laments on the cruel ways of the world often enough in their conversations that Eponine sometimes cringes at the weight of the dirt covering her own hands.

She doesn’t have long to dwell on her earlier activities as a sudden splashing noise rouses Eponine from her brief reverie. Cosette bursts forth like Venus from beneath the waves a few feet away from shore. Eponine extinguishes the fire in her right hand as she trips over the length of her skirt trying to jump up. She manages to right herself a few moments later and all but leaps towards the girl walking towards the shore.

Cosette is a vision in the moonlight, hair the color of the sand and eyes like rain puddles the day after a storm. Eponine starts a bit when she realizes that, for once, Cosette is not entirely naked. Instead, she wears a haphazardly made shell necklace long enough to cover her immaculate breasts and a mass of seaweed Eponine can only assume is meant to be a skirt. Cosette just laughs as Eponine bounds into her arms and starts nuzzling at her neck.

“And here I thought _I_ was the seal maiden.” She wraps her arms tight around Eponine and pulls her closer, planting kisses on the top of her tangled hair as wild as the night around them.

“Shut up.” Eponine huffs before stealing a kiss from her lips, pawing at the hem of her seaweed skirt.

“Is my lack of nudity disappointing?” Cosette pulls back with sparkling eyes and a wicked grin, and really, it’s entirely unfair how pretty she looks caught between the sea and the moon.

“I can’t lie, it is a little bit.” Eponine smirks as she nips at Cosette’s neck and playfully draws her thumb across part of a breast not covered by a seashell. Cosette’s resulting gasp warms her cheek like campfire smoke.

“I’m supposed to be a mermaid, you know.” Cosette says with a huff of her own as Eponine tugs her forward and begins leading them back to shore. “Like from that movie you were telling me about, with, whatshername, Meryl?”

“Ariel?” Eponine snorts. “Just without the red hair, right?”

“I tried dying it with shark’s blood, it didn’t work out.” Cosette shrugs.

“Shark’s blood?” Eponine abruptly stops and pivots to face her. “Are you telling me you’ve attacked sharks enough to draw blood? You, attacking sharks?”

Cosette seems to pale in the wake of Eponine’s questioning, feet twisting in the dirt as her arms fidget by her side. She lets her long, untamed hair fall in front of her face. Eponine remembers, then, and she curses, wishing she could take her words back. But there is no magic for that sort of thing.

“Cosette, I didn’t mean-” She pulls the other girl haphazardly into her arms, squeezing tight.

“It’s okay, Eponine. I know you didn’t.” She replies in the near whisper with which she first spoke to Eponine fourteen years ago. “Sometimes I can still hear her singing to me. I like to think she’s in some great castle in the sky somewhere, dancing with all those angels she used to tell me about.”

Eponine finds her thoughts thrown back to that fateful Halloween night all those years ago, a night drenched in rain and the noxious arguments of her parents clutching at the torn jeans several sizes too large for her as she ran clumsily into the wind from the back of their shitty excuse of a restaurant.

She remembers the thunder, the relief of it compared to the gaunt hunger of her father’s voice. She remembers the comfort of raindrops pounding against her face and the sand soothing her bare feet as she ran without any coherent concept of direction.

“That night was so dark before you.” Cosette says into her shoulder. “I’m sorry you were suffering too, but I’m still glad you found me.”

“Me too.” Eponine agrees into the top of her head as images of that night continue to unravel like spools of thread in her thoughts.

Eponine had crashed into the little blond girl standing at the edge of the water, as fragile as Eponine’s favorite glass doll. They had argued, at first, over who was at fault for their tumble.

“You should watch where you’re running!” Cosette had screeched, picking herself up with flashing eyes and trembling little fists. “You could hurt someone!”

“Well how am I supposed to know there’s anyone out here in the dark?” Eponine had scolded as Cosette stomped in the water. “Why aren’t you with your parents? And eww, where are your clothes?”

Cosette had turned away from her then.

“It’s not my fault I don’t have a mommy anymore.”

She had whispered the words, but Eponine, master of muttering at age six, had overheard. She had paused for a minute, weighing the hazards in her mind the way her mother had taught her to weigh coins in her hands. With a determined jut of her chin, she had walked over to the other girl and grabbed her hand.

“Maybe we can share? Except I don’t like my parents very much, so maybe we can find some new ones together?”

Cosette’s eyelids had fluttered and her small mouth curved into a smile.

 Looking back on it, Eponine wonders if she hadn’t lost her soul to Cosette exactly then.

“You were such a weird child.” She says now, maneuvering them to the old basket with Cosette in her arms.

“Oh, like you and your Pokemon cards and cigarettes were any better.” Cosette sticks her tongue out, and Eponine laughs in relief.

“Says the girl who lives as a seal.”

“Says the girl in love with the girl who lives as a seal.” Cosette’s eyes twinkle and Eponine has to pull her down into the sand and kiss her.

“I like your costume, you know.” Cosette tells her in between soft blushes and even softer kisses. “It’s very you.”

“It’s supposed to be ironic.” Eponine says, rolling her eyes as they kiss again.

“You’re too lovely for irony, darling.” Cosette says before threading her hands through Eponine’s hair and pulling her further into the sand, the picnic basket all but forgotten.

\---

“I wish we had more than tonight.” Eponine, a tad drunk on wine and one too many chocolate éclairs, says with one hand in Cosette’s hair and the other on her hip, so sharp she can feel bone through flesh.

“You’ll see me tomorrow.” Cosette, with both her hands draped over Eponine’s neck, burrows closer into her, the shells of her makeshift necklace scattered all around them.

“Yeah, but not like this.” Eponine gestures to Cosette with a limp wrist and a frown marring her face.

“Perhaps soon we won’t have to worry about not seeing each other more often.” Cosette begins to pick at the edges of the parts of her skirt that remain, even as she keeps her gaze steady on Eponine.

“There is a rumor I’ve heard of a seal coat which transforms the wearer into one of us.”

Eponine stares, a strange feeling she can’t quite name unfurling in her gut like soured milk. She tries to shake it off, even as Cosette keeps speaking and stroking her fingers over her hand.

“You’ve mentioned before how your family deals in…not quite legal matters?”

“Cosette, you know as well as I do that my family is a bunch of low-life, good-for-nothings.”

“Yes, well. This coat, should it exist, is a highly prized item, and unlikely to be available easily through legal means. Your family’s connections are the best chance we have at finding it.”

“And then what? I put it on and become…like you?”

 Eponine chews on her lip, casting her gaze on the water which seems tepid in comparison to the churning in her stomach. She’s dabbled in transformation magic before, even managed to turn into a cat once. (And, oh, the look on Azelma’s face was absolutely worth it.) But to become like Cosette, to give up her life on land and give herself entirely to the water, well, Eponine doesn’t know how she feels about such a commitment.

She knows she loves Cosette; she burns in her bones for Cosette. But for all the courage as she displays outwardly on a daily basis, Eponine finds herself utterly terrified of swimming with sharks.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, and I won’t blame you for saying no.” Cosette whispers to her as she tugs on her hands and squeezes. “I wish a spell existed so that I could live on land.”

Eponine leans in and kisses her at those words, squeezing her hands right back. In spite of her doubts, she knows she has to try. The stubborn part of her, the daughter of wolves masquerading in the streets as a young woman, refuses to give in to fear so easily, especially when her lover by her side has fought sharks by herself and won.

Unease still lingers within her, but she banishes it with incantations unknown in the language of magic.  

“I’ll keep looking, as long as it takes. For the spell and the coat both.”

“This is all such a fairy-tale, isn’t it?” Cosette breathes against Eponine’s lips, trembling. Eponine tugs her closer so that she all but falls into her arms before they both collapse into the sand.

“So help me, we’ll find a happy ending out of this, one way or another.” She promises as Cosette curls herself around her with a sigh.

Later, perhaps in a few seconds, perhaps in a couple of hours, they will entwine themselves completely, the outcast witch and the curious selkie who ran into each other on the beach. Seaweed and sand alike will scatter before eager limbs and heaving chests; initial caution leading to infinite euphoria in the dark of night on the sea shore. But for now, Eponine and Cosette remain mostly still.

Contented by the lull of the tide and the weight of each others arms, they fall into not quite a trance. Eponine plays with the freckles dotted across Cosette’s shoulders as Cosette entwines a strand of her hair around one pale finger. They say nothing save for the exchanges of breath that pass through their lips and the slow, steady beating of their hearts like drumbeats. Like the moonlight, they glimmer in the dark with the possibility of hope.


End file.
